32 THE NOUN.
The use of these convenient expressions, which is bor- rowed from Chinese grammar, is chiefly confined to per- sons of education.
1i 49. The student should note the difference in construction between genuine native compounds and those borrowed from the Chinese, when one member of the compound is a verb governing the other. In genuine Japanese com- pounds the verb comes last, as in English, thus :
hara-kiri, " belly-cutting," the old form of legalised suicide.
kami-hasami, "hair-cutting," [hasamu="to cut with scissors ").
In Chinese compounds, on the contrary, the verb comes first. Take, for instance, the elegant Chinese synonyms for hara-kiri and kami-hasami, which are preferred by cultured speakers, viz.
sep-puku, from setsu, "to cut," andfukit, " belly." zam-patsu, zan, "to cut," ,, hatsu, " hair."
N. B. A hyphen must always be used to separate the two members of such compounds as gcn-an, " the draft of a document," where a final n is followed by an initial vowel. In such examples as gcnan (from gc and nan), " a man-servant," the hyphen is not essential. The distinc- tioji is strongly marked in pronunciation.
COMPOSITION A GREAT FACTOR IN WORD-BUILDING.
50. The student interested in etymology will gradually discover that almost all long Japanese words and many short ones are really compounds, though their composite origin is often forgotten even by the Japanese themselves. Thus michif " a road " is from mi, an honorific prefix,
